"'I should be clear about something: it is never the words, but how they are spoken that matters'," quotes Elizabeth Strout from Daniel Alarcón's "The Provincials," the first of the 20 short stories she presents. The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge, Strout tunes into the tone of the voice—the breathless anxiety of David Means's "The Chair"; the restless run-on language of Steven Millhauser's "A Voice in the Night"; the puzzled wonder of Kirstin Valdez Quade's "Nemecia." Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, Junot Díaz, Gish Jen, Lorrie Moore, Antonya Nelson, and George Saunders are also here. Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For this title, as for each of the others, a series editor reviews hundreds of periodicals, then selects between 50 and 100 outstanding works. The guest editor—a recognized expert in the field—then pares the list down to the 20 or so very best pieces.